


The Essential Process of All Existence

by alpheratz



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, Mind Meld, Star Trek AU, sweet little Vulcans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 13:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpheratz/pseuds/alpheratz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Star Trek AU. Pete's a Vulcan who's rejected the teachings of Surak and left Vulcan behind years ago. Mikey hasn't. To Pete, this is fascinating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Essential Process of All Existence

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "telepathy/mind meld" trope_bingo square.

Pete didn't run into Mikey until the third Standard week of his deep space rotation, but when he did run into him, he did so literally. The corridors shook and tilted when the starship crashed to a stop out of warp, alarms wailed, and Pete fell out of bed before he was fully awake. He ran into Mikey on his breakneck race to the bridge, turning a corner on the wrong side of the corridor and colliding with someone in red running just as fast towards Engineering. 

Pete threw his arms out without thinking and caught him by the hands and felt _fear surprise adrenaline_ through the guy's shields, and, behind them, something deep and sad and carefully repaired.

The guy spun around Pete and ran off, and Pete stood gaping after him amid the screaming alarms until enough people ran past him that he remembered where he was going.

He thought about the guy -- a Vulcan, unmistakably another Vulcan -- in the back of his mind the entire two-hour battle with the Klingon warbirds that had somehow hooked them out of warp speed, thinking, thinking, thinking while trying his best to keep up the deflector shields. After, the captain patted him on the back, but Pete still thought about the Vulcan instead of the approval.

Pete hung around Engineering at the beginning of each shift in hopes of catching his stranger, but he didn't see him again until a few days later, when the head of communications requested a report from the comm analysis unit to the bridge. Five minutes later, the turbolift hissed open and the Vulcan walked in, thin and tallish and with terrible posture for a Vulcan. Not that Pete had any room to judge.

"Thank you, Mr. Mikey," Pete heard Lieutenant Simmons say. 

Pete cast around for a reason to request an excuse to leave the bridge. No reason presented itself in time, and Pete helplessly watched Mikey scan the room, momentarily pausing when his eyes met Pete's, look at him with a blank expression with no hint of the scared-sadness Pete had felt on him the day before, and leave.

Pete had an idea of where to find him now, so the meeting in the bridge wasn't quite a disaster, but Mikey sought him out on his own in the mess during the gamma shift.

"You are Vulcan," Mikey stated.

Pete looked up slowly from his replicated burrito and studied Mikey's face carefully, the wide brown eyes and neat brown hair cut into a modern Vulcan style that was almost a normal haircut. "Yeah. So are you. Hey."

Mikey's expression didn't change, but Pete felt that he was kind of surprised, maybe. "You are Vulcan, yet you touched me in the hallway during yesterday's beta shift. Additionally, you are not shielded. Please explain."

Pete bit his lip and brushed his bangs behind his ear. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself before you ask personal questions?"

Mikey's lips quirked up so minutely that Pete wouldn't have noticed if he had been paying even a little less attention. "You already know my name, and I know yours."

Pete wasn't a stickler for shielding, because there was usually no one to shield from and Pete didn't give a fuck anyway, but Mikey made him feel self-conscious about it. There was a lot in Pete's head.

No point in apologizing for it, though. Pete raised his chin. "I don't know what name you picked up when I touched you, but I go by Pete now."

Mikey nodded. "You have abandoned the Vulcan ways and have adopted an Earth name. I understand. So have I."

Pete felt his eyebrows shoot up. "Name, maybe, but you so haven't abandoned the Vulcan ways. Just listen to yourself."

Mikey smiled, actually _smiled_. Pete stared. "I follow the teachings of Surak, but that doesn't mean I'm a traditionalist. It's not all or nothing."

Pete kept staring at him. Mikey kept smiling.

* * *

After that, Pete sees Mikey in the mess all the time. Like for some reason before he just didn't notice Mikey. That doesn't seem reasonable, so he asks.

"I was assigned to a different shift approximately a week ago," Mikey explains, picking at replicator sushi. "This is very different from the sushi I've had on Earth."

"I don't know how you eat that." Pete snatches up a piece of California roll from Mikey's tray and pops it in his mouth. "I'll take you to a real sushi place when we're back Earthside."

Mikey lifts his eyebrow, but doesn't say anything. Pete tries to wait him out, but he's never won a game of silence in his life. He drums his fingers on the table, watching Mikey from under his eyelashes to see if he finds it annoying, but that gets no reaction either. 

"Are you down?" Pete finally asks. "Sushi. You and me." 

"I am sitting upright," says Mikey, straight-faced, but after a second he huffs out a quiet laugh and smiles at his tray. "Yes. I'd like that."

"Sweet," says Pete. "San Francisco sushi isn't Tokyo sushi, but it can be pretty awesome."

"My brother lives in San Francisco." 

"Oh yeah?" Pete's still thinking about him and Mikey and sushi. A small restaurant, possibly dark, a band playing in a corner and Pete leaning in, maybe, messing up Mikey's neat hair. 

"Gerard. Well, G'rard," Mikey says. "He simplified it."

Pete blinks. "That's a Klingon name."

Mikey smiles. Pete can't look away. "Our parents are rather... nonconformist. It was fortunate for us."

"I believe that." Mikey's face looks almost soft, so Pete keeps asking about the brother. "Does he follow Vulcan ways like you?" 

Mikey's face softens even more. "No. He is an artist. I needed the teachings of Surak to discipline my mind. He chose another path. He is more like you." 

"I was in a band," Pete says, attempting to process the fact that being like Mikey's brother seems to be a point in Pete's favor. Pete usually swims against the tide of points against him. "That's kind of artist-y."

Mikey lights up, for a Vulcan. "You played Earth music?"

Pete stares into Mikey's eyes and keeps talking. "Yeah! Pop punk second revival, you know, new spin on the 2190s revival wave. Kind of old-fashioned but we put a twist on it with new synths and this rad soundboard my singer had in his garage. Then we ran out of money and I joined Starfleet, but it was awesome while it lasted."

"I love Earth music," Mikey says almost wistfully. 

Pete's heart swoops in his chest and he makes himself say, "I have recordings."

It's a few Standard days before Pete manages to find a suitable moment to casually invite Mikey to his room, but that gives him plenty of time to organize his music padds in various orders and decide on one. 

Mikey sits on the floor in the meditation pose, which makes Pete's bones ache with the memory of the long cold months on the floor of his room at the monastery in Gol. It's been long enough that the sight doesn't make him slide back into that headspace, alone facing the demons that everyone insisted he could simply banish through meditation and discipline, but something must still show in his face because Mikey's eyes narrow and he says, "You are uncomfortable, yet this is your room. Please explain."

Pete shrugs and swallows the lump in his throat. "I'm just not used to seeing Vulcan rituals," he says lightly and turns away to get the padds from his table. 

When he turns around, Mikey's... changed. His posture is more relaxed than Pete's ever seen a Vulcan allow himself, and he's sitting cross-legged, only his neat brown hair and the strong lines of his face saying _Vulcan_. 

"Uh," Pete says, dry-mouthed, and drops to the floor next to him. "So, look, this is all my late-20th century shit." He shoves a padd into Mikey's hand, focusing as hard as he can on not touching Mikey's hand, because Pete doesn't have shields, doesn't even remember how, and if he touches Mikey that will definitely be too much for a first non-date in his quarters. 

"Cool," Mikey says, accepting the padd almost reverently.

"And this is recent stuff-- wait." Pete blinks and frowns. "You just said 'cool.' What happened to all the 'fascinating' and shit?"

Mikey's cheeks take on a greenish tint and he ducks his head. "It's just easier to be the way people expect you to be, you know?" 

Pete's still frowning and processing, but he gets it. "I do know."

Mikey looks up, still flushed green but eyes hopeful. "I thought you might."

Pete moves forward without thinking and freezes, terrified, a breath away from Mikey's lips, because he _doesn't have shields_ , fuck, what was he _thinking_ even talking to Mikey?

"It's okay," Mikey whispers. "I'll shield."

He leans in and touches his lips to Pete's mouth. It's soft and warm, so much warmer than kissing humans, who feel startlingly cool to the touch. Pete kisses Mikey back and shivers in anticipation of warmth.

Mikey's hands drop to Pete's thighs, so close to Pete's that Pete's fingertips tingle. And some things must run deeper than habit, because Pete suddenly craves a kiss that's traditional, and he clenches his hands into fists and doesn't even know why.

"It's okay," Mikey whispers and brushes Pete's hands, sparking Pete's mind with heat. 

Pete grabs Mikey's hands and shoves his tongue into Mikey's mouth, a kiss on every level.

"I don't have to shield, you know," Mikey mumbles when Pete pulls back to breathe. "It doesn't matter how you are inside."

Pete goes hot. He's never. They're still holding hands. It's distracting but Pete tries to clear his head. "It always matters."

"I think we're more alike than you think," Mikey whispers and raises their joined hands. They're level with their mouths, their _faces_. Pete fixates on Mikey's knuckles, his fingertips, and imagines them on his face.

"We barely know each other," Pete points out. 

Mikey gives him a sharp grin and squeezes his hands. "I know."

"That's fucking dirty," Pete breathes and lets Mikey let go and put his fingers on Pete's meld points. Lets him say the words.

Mikey's mind flares brightly in Pete's and Pete sees everything, the whirling nebulas of tangled thoughts, failed roads overgrown with thorns like primeval forests, fear like an entire galaxy implausibly cradled within a golden sun.

In turn, Pete shows his fury and the scarred-over hurt, the tumultuous abysses Pete still falls into at times when the downdraft is too strong. Pete lets Mikey see what he wants but pulls his focus away from the darknesses and to the sensation of Mikey in his mind and himself in Mikey's.

When Mikey withdraws, Pete feels empty, bright afterimages in his mind and tear tracks on his cheeks. He looks at Mikey, trying to figure out what he's thinking. 

Instead of saying anything, Mikey finds Pete's hand and squeezes it, shields mostly up but affection leaking through, and grins when Pete floods with relief. 

"Told you," Mikey murmurs. "Wasn't that good?"

Pete hums, basking in the affection, and strokes Mikey's hand.

"I don't..." Mikey furrows his brow, trying to find the words. "I don't like other Vulcans very much. But that... I miss that all the time."

"We can do this all the time," Pete says eagerly. "Leaping into things, that's something I'm great at."

The corner of Mikey's mouth quirks up. "It's not terribly logical."

Pete reaches out and smooths it into place. "Do you really want to follow the teachings, Mikey?"

"They're the best thing for me." Mikey nods and clutches Pete's hand when Pete feels his face fall. "But that doesn't mean we can't do this too."

"You can just be extra-logical in other areas," Pete says, pulling Mikey up and to the bunk.

"That makes very little sense," Mikey informs him, but he takes off his tunic when Pete tugs on it, so Pete counts it as a win. He has to.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Star Trek episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."


End file.
